You've left very little out there --- only thing else I'd like to see details of is you removing the dough balls from the dough trays. Since the balls seem nice and "sticky" I'm sure that their removal requires a level of skill and particular technique that few possess! Your detailing that particular aspect of the process would be helpful.

Oh, sorry, BEAUTIFUL PIES Omid!!

John K

Dear John, removing a dough ball from a dough tray is not a difficult task to master. It takes some skills (which should be easy to learn) and the right tool (dough spatula/scraper) to accomplish. When dough balls are very delicate and sticky, tightly packed together in a dough tray, a dough scraper with an extended handle may prove to be more practical than a regular scraper. "More practical" because the extended handle keeps the fingers away from adjacent dough balls as one thrusts the scraper forward and under the dough ball to be extracted. Moreover, the extended handle provides a wider range of approach-angles (because of the fingers and knuckles being out of the way) and a lengthier forward thrust. The first picture below exhibits two long-handle dough scrapers (one with narrow and one with wide blade) and one short-handle scraper.

Here is an informative video by pizzaiolo Pasquale Makishima demonstrating how to remove dough balls:

Notice that the first thing the pizzaiolo did in the video, before extracting the dough balls out of the tray, was to sprinkle some flour on them. Next, he disengaged the target dough ball from the adjacent balls and/or tray wall(s) with the aid of the dough scraper blade. The sprinkled flour is obviously to prevent re-engagement. Thereafter, he thrust the dough scrapper forward and under the target dough ball, and lifted it out of the tray. The scraper should approach the target dough ball from the side and angle that provide the safest course of extraction without damaging or deforming the neighboring dough balls.

At last, the pizzaiolo immediately let the dough ball off the scraper and let it rest upside down—which, by the way, allows the dough ball to degas itself to an extent. If I am dealing with gas-bloated dough balls, I let them rest for a short period of time upside down on the bancone to degas themselves through the tiny pores on the dough ball. See the second and third picture, below. The second one shows a dough ball resting upside down, and the third one is a magnification of the tiny pores of the same dough ball.

All in all, the main point is to extract the dough balls without irretrievably deforming them. I do not understand Japanese, but I believe that the pizzaiolo warned not to let the edges of dough balls get tucked under them in the course of taking them out of tray. If the tucked-in edges are not rectified in the process of drafting the dough ball into a dough disk, then it may become problematic when one tries to rotate the pizza on the oven floor. The round edge of turning peel can lodge itself inside the fold and may either tear the pizza or prevent the operator from rotating the pizza clockwise or counter-clockwise. I hope this helped. Good night!

It absolutely did help. I showed it to my son (who sometimes learns better when he's hearing things from someone other than Dad!) and although we don't know Japanese either, the repeated demonstrations are very informative.

I had not ever considered the upside-down degassing step. That is a simple step that I would not have considered!

So once again Omid, THANK YOU! I feel more confident that I can place more dough balls in the artisan trays without deforming them!

I'm wondering how you are able to get the pizza in the oven when it is hanging over the edges of the peel.

Dear Tinroof, it is easier than it appears to the naked eyes, but it does take some practice and the dough should have the proper degree of strength. About a year ago, I used to prepare large batches of dough on daily basis and used to patiently practice this method of launching raw pizzas day after day—launching them not on an oven floor, but on an open, flat surface where I could clearly observe my performance and the process. Below is a video of one of my early practice sessions, which I had posted here a year ago.

I am much better at it now, one year later. Sometimes, I like to analogize this method to a rope-walker who uses a long pole to balance himself on the rope. (Here, the "long pole" stands for the pizza flaps hanging on the opposite sides of the pizza peel, and the "rope-walker" stand for the pizza itself.) Good weekend!

Yesterday, Pizzeria Bruno became five years old. I vividly remember that five years ago, while I was driving by Pizzeria Bruno at night, the brilliance of its oven-fire caught my attention all the way on the road. I immediately pulled over to find out what kind of oven it was. I walked in the place, where Peter, the owner-pizzaiolo, greeted me. As soon as my eyes beheld his oven, I whispered to myself, "I got to quit my job at the law firm." I did, three years later. Happy birthday Bruno!

To celebrate the occasion, Peter threw a big pizza party at Bruno last night. While enjoying the party, I baked some pizzas, using my own homemade dough and the Ferrara oven instead of my Forno Piccolo at home. I remade the same dough as I did few days ago in my Reply #2193 in the previous page:

However, this time I fermented the dough for 15+4.5 hours at room temperature (70-77ºF). My previous dough, in Reply #2193, was fermented for 14+6 hours at room temperature (71-76ºF). As you can see, the bake results are markedly different when I use the Ferrara instead of my Forno Piccolo.

Omid they are totally different bake results. Is it because you run your piccolo like a furnace?

I tentatively believe that is one of the principal factors. Unlike the Ferrra, my Forno Piccolo is a small oven, which has an internal floor diameter of 25 inches. It is a very confined space inside the Piccolo. In the pictures, the oven interior misleadingly appears large, but it is not.

Throughout the bake process in the Piccolo, the pizza sits adjacent to the fire (about 2 inches to the fire and 2 inches to the opposite wall). And, I run my oven dome and walls exuberantly hot, with the live and brilliant flames always hovering over the pizza on the floor during the entire bake process. Therefore, the pizza is more directly exposed to the onslaught of the flames from the above and left side, and more directly exposed to the radiative heat emanating from the wall on the right side of the pizza. In contrast, I believe the exposure is not as direct in the Ferrara oven. I think the "direct exposure" might be one principal contributing factor amongst others.

Tonight I shot a short video of my oven in action. I uploaded it to Youtube. Below is a link. Good night!

In order not to clutter Ringkingpin's thread (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,28286.0.html), I'm brining the discussion here. In his thread, he posed a question that I think is of great importance. I hope other members contribute what they can to unravel this issue. So, Ringkingpin asked:

"What happens if I skip the bulk ferment all together? . . . After I’ve made the dough, what will happen if I balled it directly . . . ?"

Dear Peter, in my assessment, it is not easy to simply state why the "two-step process" (sometimes referred to as "double-rise") yields better results than the "one-step process"—because of the complexities involved in this matter. Actual experimentation has fully substantiated, at least to many prominent bakers and pizzaioli, that the two-step process produces superior results indeed, yet they fall short to provide a rationale underlying the phenomenon. Perhaps, to know why, one needs to have a conceptual understanding of the system, that is, the dough system.

In my opinion, under the right conditions, the two-step process, as opposed to the one-step process, brings about:

If I am not mistaken, Raymond Calvel also emphasized the importance of using double-rise for the sake of better dough maturation and flavor. However, I do not think he revealed any reasons. I naively believe the reasons lie in the yeast colonies (and their colonial behavior and patterns throughout the dough), yeast metabolism, and dough biochemistry. If I, as an amateur, were to account for all these here, it would probably take me several hours and about twenty pages. So, I will be absurdly brief, hoping that I can get my point across. There are many dots that need to be connected.

Basically, according to my ongoing studies, when the dough is manipulated, subdivided, and formed into dough balls after the first rise or first step, these very acts change the behavior of yeast colonies and the underlying physical structure of the dough. These acts considerably impact the dough rheology, biochemistry, and metabolic behavior of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as briefly outlined below:

As I mentioned above, the very acts of subdividing and forming dough balls change the behavior of yeast colonies and dough rheology. In the process, some metabolic waste materials (such as carbon dioxide and alcohol) are expelled, which has, to varying degrees, a revitalizing effect on the yeast cells. Most known biological organisms (including humans and S. cerevisiae, which are homologous to human cells) can not sustain themselves too long in their own waste materials. The entrapment and accumulation of carbon dioxide in the dough gradually lowers the pH of the dough and, hence, the metabolic functions of the yeast cells. Moreover, the build-up of alcohol in the dough has the same effect on the yeast cells. S. cerevisiae are acid intolerant. And, sufficient concentration of alcohol is lethal to the yeast cells. Dough manipulation, upon the conclusion of the first rise, will most likely relocate and/or disperse the yeast colonies from the acidification and alcoholization of their immediate surroundings. Keep in mind that, according to our present knowledge of S. cerevisiae, the yeast cells are not motile. They are not capable of self-motion.

S. cerevisiae are not able to ferment the fermentable substances of dough outside of their cells, nor can they proteolytically reduce the proteins (e.g., gluten) outside of their bodies. The yeast cells do not have the ability to secrete digestive enzymes into their surrounding environment; hence, they need to ingest the digestible disaccharides, hexoses, proteins, and lipids before they can act upon them. Therefore, the acts of subdividing and forming dough balls can shuffle the dough nutrients and redistribute the non-motile yeast cells for the sake of more uniform catabolic reactions in the dough. This is kind of similar to the "divide and conquer" principle.

The reintroduction of oxygen in the dough by manipulation may shift metabolism of S. cerevisiae from anaerobic to aerobic or vice versa, and it may be accompanied by the Crabtree effect or Pasteur effect, depending on the levels of glucose and oxygen concentration. Fermentation (which yields no energy, ATP, of its own) is an incomplete breakdown of glucose molecules, whereas aerobic cellular respiration (which yields about 36 ATPs per glucose molecule) is a complete breakdown of glucose molecules. Hence, it might be advantageous to shift from anaerobic to aerobic respiration, which does no fermentation; nonetheless, it aids digestion, leavens the dough, and produces weak organic acids which contribute to flavor and bake quality. Naturally, it is all about the right balance between the aerobic and anaerobic reactions.

The yeast colonies behave much like highly organized multicellular entities or even armies. They are able to communicate and coordinate their behavior. Think about it, what happens if every yeast cell in the dough decides to carry out a different metabolic reaction or pathway, of which there are many:

The yeast cells appear to be much more sophisticated than once we thought. These single-celled eukaryotic organisms are sensitive and responsive to the changes in their environment (motion, pressure, pH, nutrient fluctuations, temperature, light waves, sound waves). According to the microbiology paper "How Saccharomyces Responds to Nutrients" published in 2008 by the Department of Molecular Biology of Princeton University:

"Yeast cells sense the amount and quality of external nutrients through multiple interconnected signaling networks, which allow them to adjust their metabolism, transcriptional profile, and developmental program to adapt readily and appropriately to changing nutritional states. We present our current understanding of the nutritional sensing networks yeast cells rely on for perceiving the nutritional landscape, with particular emphasis on those sensitive to carbon and nitrogen sources. We describe the means by which these networks inform the cell's decision among the different developmental programs available to them—growth, quiescence, filamentous development, or meiosis/sporulation. We conclude that the highly interconnected signaling networks provide the cell with a highly nuanced view of the environment and that the cell can interpret that information through a sophisticated calculus to achieve optimum responses to any nutritional condition."Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18303986

This is really a fascinating subject. Please, take everything I communicated above with a grain of salt as I am no professional microbiologist. Good night!

Omid

(The picture, below, shows yeast colonies expanding in a malt agar. Each colony is comprise of thousands to millions of yeast cells. In certain areas in the agar, there are individual expanding colonies built on top of one another.)

"That is what is called a streak plate. It's a method to isolate individual strains from a species. You inoculate a plate with a mixed species and then streak the plate with a sterile loop. Then turn the plate and streak again with a sterile loop dragging some of the cells across the plate, then again. Usually there are 4 quadrants, but this one looks like it only has three. In any case, each new set of streaks pulls progressively fewer cells as the concentration is diluted with each set of streaks. The goal is to get to where you spread single cells across the final portion of the plate. The single dot colonies grew from single cells and are thus all of the same species."